Succulent
by thir13enth
Summary: He drinks until she becomes an empty glass.


**Sorta angsty. Sorta noir. Pretty much AU.**

* * *

_"I wish I didn't need you now. I wish you didn't need me."—Celldweller_

(...)

"Why are you following me?"

Her anger spilled out—she brought down her unfinished drink against the glossy bar with a loud clack.

Bella had thought she'd be able to enjoy her vodka without any interruptions. After a long hard day of work, she was ready to lose herself, get drunk, and be taken home by some nobody. But it seemed the more annoying part of her day had just begun.

He sat down to the right of her, out of all the unoccupied seats at the empty bar. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then why don't you read my mind?" she growled into her empty glass.

"You know I can't—"

"How do I know that's not just another one of your stupid lies?"

"—and I wouldn't even if I could," he said, overlapping her. His eyes shifted to the left, and by the curious looks across the bar room, he realized that he had raised his voice a bit too loud. Now exasperated, he quietly added, "I just came here to get a drink."

She stopped for a moment, incensed and holding back a snarl. Her eyes locked onto his topaz eyes, and for a second he remembered the days when the once soft chocolate brown eyes held his reflection in a loving gaze. Her eyes were now darkened, black embers full of spite.

"An alcoholic drink," he corrected, before ordering a drink from the passing bartender.

Silence settled over the two of them, and it wasn't broken until his amber golden bliss was brought to him in an ice cold mug.

He took a sip, looking at her from over the rim of his glass. "I'm sorry, Bella."

The human didn't respond, and the vampire wasn't able to read any sort of emotion off her, even from the intense glare of her eyes.

"Another round, please?" she asked the bartender, completely ignoring his plea.

She was barely able to take another sip of her precious liquid before he interrupted her once more. "What is it going to take for you to forgive me?"

"Nothing a bloodsucker like you can offer," she coolly said.

"It was a mistake, Bella. I swear on my dead-still heart that I didn't mean to hurt you at all."

Her tongue curdled like she had just tasted something vicious. "Soul-less," she corrected.

"Bella—"

"Just taking life from the living. God, I don't know why we don't discriminate against you—keep you in a zoo or something," she continued. "We should have been harsher on you creatures like the werewolves suggested we should have done."

"Society has nothing to do with what happened between us," he retorted. "Don't blame society for what I take as completely my own fault. Vampires and humans can live symbiotically, as was agreed fourteen years ago."

She laughed once. "Symbiotically? What benefit do humans get when vampires take blood? More like parasitically."

"We were together, Bella."

"Oh yes, I remember," she growled. "I'm just trying to forget."

Strangely, her words hurt more now than they had the first time she attacked him for being subhuman.

(...)

Subhuman: once humans discovered the Apples of Eden—powerful technologies that allowed wielders to acquire supernatural abilities—and put them to everyday use, vampires were no longer feared. After all, the only advantage vampires had over humans was the sole fact that they had powers like telekinesis, mind-emotion manipulation, super speed, and the like. Now that humans possessed those abilities through the black-marketed Apples, they were able to bring the vampire race to its knees, begging.

And what else could the "bloodsuckers" do? They were completely dependent on the living—for warmth, for blood, for emotion. Vampires that attempted to live without these, the vampires that tried to go rogue, withered away completely. Turned to ash, dust, nothing.

They weren't human. So they were made into a workforce. It was perfect—the vampires had innate abilities to work the earth, perform the labor and tasks that no human would have dared. They didn't need to eat, they didn't need to sleep, and they would do anything for a drop of blood—something so cost-free, something that humans produced without conscious effort.

(...)

"Bella," he started again, trying to be light-hearted. "If you had actually forgotten, you wouldn't be acting so hostile to me."

"Exactly. I can't forget," she retorted. "You left marks. Several."

He flinched, looking away from her exposed inner wrist, but he had already noticed the two perfect crescents perched over the succulent vein.

(...)

Blood—the sewage system of the human body.

Vampires would take any kind of blood—cold, anemic, expired, infected—anything to stop their mouths from filling with venom, so much venom that they couldn't sleep without risk of drowning in their own spit.

The once-noble vampires attacked the enslaving humans. The humans fought back and embargoed the resources vampires needed. The vampires fought harder, kidnapping entire families and converting them. Others took on 'vegetarian' diets and ingested the inferior blood from animals.

Eventually the whole order of the world collapsed in front of them, and the werewolves—protecting the humans first and foremost—stepped in, declaring that humans simply get rid of vampires altogether.

The more moralistic humans judged that it was better that humans, vampires, and werewolves try to coexist, take away the segregations, enact rules that allowed no race to take advantage of another.

But like any other major societal change, a completely racist-free world was hundreds of generations away.

(...)

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'm a vampire. It's in my nature."

She sneered, pulling away from him. "Disgusting," she hissed under her breath.

"Bella, you accepted me for who I was, remember? Even with all the racism and the hate and violence…" His voice cracked here, and since he wasn't strong enough to show that he was weak, he just stopped talking, masking his broken heart under resolute silence.

(...)

His family was gentle and reasonable. He had asked as a young vampire why his parents sympathized with the humans, why they didn't just go kill all the humans that spat where they walked, why they didn't use their powers to fight against the humans that had subjugated them.

"No life deserves to be stolen," they had told him.

And so he had become a "vegetarian vampire."

Animal blood was bitter and hard to get used to. It was a temporary fix that ultimately failed—like drinking ocean water when stranded and thirsty—and would eventually wear any vampire out.

Most vampires he knew that followed the vegetarian diet eventually lost control, ended up going on a murder spree, and imbibed until they were drunk with satiety.

But he had control, and by the time he was centuries old, he had fasted from human blood for so long that he barely found a reason to drink anymore.

Then he had smelled her.

And it was like he had found eternal bliss.

(...)

"Edward," she said softly, and all his world stopped when he realized that this was the first time his name ever left her lips since she had thrown him away a year ago.

He looked up, expectant.

"That was only because I felt pity for a pathetic and needy creature," she said, hardened. "I see that you haven't changed at all."

"Yes," he admitted. "I'm pathetic and I'm needy. I need you, Bella."

"Shut up."

"You're my Singer," he said. "I can't help it—I'm so sorry, my love. I had never wanted to…but you…you called to me, I was instantly attracted to you. And I have never been so in love with anyone else. I-I just felt so drawn, so comfortable with you. You knew who—what—I was, but you loved me anyway. You trusted me with all your heart—"

She looked away but he could have sworn he saw some resolve crack behind her dark eyes.

"Bella—"

"I don't want to hear anymore."

"Then why are you here? At this bar?"

The brunette refused to answer, swishing the last swish of vodka in her glass.

"I've seen you come here every weekend…for the past five weeks at least," he continued.

She closed her eyes and slowly massaged her temples. "So you have been following me."

"Bella, love, this is where we used to meet every Saturday."

Frustrated, she stood up and off her bar stool, turning to quickly walk away. His marble-cold hand caught her soft warm wrist. She pulled her hand back, but even Edward could tell that she hadn't really tried to get herself out of his grip.

"I don't think you'd come here on a normal basis," he added. "You don't even drink regularly."

He saw her bite her lip.

God, how he missed seeing her do that.

Keeping his eyes trained on her, he slowly pulled her in, eventually holding her right hand in both his.

"I couldn't let you go either," he admitted, bringing her hand up to his lips. She shuddered and then cursed herself.

This wasn't the first time she had forgiven him. She didn't know why she kept doing it.

She knew their relationship had gone too far. It would never work.

So why did she keep letting him come back?

(...)

It was all routine by now.

She barely flinched when she saw his fangs creep out, the glistening venom on his tongue, his black eyes flickering lust and some sort of animalistic desire.

The most painful half-second when her skin was pierced, and then…heaven.

Better than anything she had experienced in her life.

Good god, she wanted him to feed off her.

He moaned. She moaned. Tangled in each other's limbs, twisting in the bedsheets. Wrapped in each other's anger and frustration at why they couldn't just move on.

He only ever drank for a minute.

Then they would force each other off from the other.

"No more, no more," they both agreed, gasping from the aftermath.

He tentatively brought his lips to hers, and she tasted the remnants of her own sweet iron blood on his tongue. Her tongue curled in disgust, but she still felt traces of his butterfly kisses over her skin.

She was never sure if she was shuddering in desire or blood loss.

(...)

A vampire's kiss.

People said once a human knew what it felt like to be bitten—to be needed by a vampire—they could never forget the euphoric sensation.

He'd keep making her forgive him, keep bringing her back, keep drinking her blood—until she was an empty glass.

* * *

**Would love to hear what you guys thought!**

**thir13enth**


End file.
